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I was reading an interesting article about how a majority of the students getting into the elite PUBLIC High Schools in New York City (as well as elsewhere) are now mostly Asian. The main way the students can get into these schools- with their extremely challenging academics- is by scoring very highly in a standardized tests.
The Asian students who want to get into these elite High Schools will study 12-14 hours a day and take all kinds of prep classes to help them score high on the tests. FREE prep classes are available for Black and Hispanic students but they rarely enroll. Their advocates say they should be allowed to get into these elite PUBLIC High Schools based on their grades or teacher recommendations even if they score poorly on the entrance tests. Critics say that a good GPA or strong recommendations by teachers from a poor middle school does not really show they are strong enough students to survive the elite High School's academics. The percentage of students who are White is dropping also as many white students can't compete with the Asians who study 14 hours a day.
Critics say that if you let Non Asian students who score below the mean on the entrance tests they will have to lower academic standards and the elite students will suffer. But other critics say it is not fair to only let kids in who score well on the test. What do you think?
So you'll let in lower performing students who will struggle and end up failing all in the name of "diversity" ?
These "elite" public schools are elite for one reason. The cream of the crop all go there.
If you want diversity, don't lower the standards at these schools. Instead go into the K-8 schools and raise the bar and bring those low performing students up 10 notches or so.
The solution is to make everyone competitive regardless of race. Not to let non-competitive races slide into positions in elite schools that they did not earn. It's not an easy solution, but it's the the only long-term solution. Raise the quality of education for those who generally under-perform.
They're already public, students who want in already do what they have to in order to meet the admission criteria, and anybody who wants to is free to do the same. However, there are better marks of scholarship than standardized test results alone . It's why elite universities and colleges don't often tie admission exclusively to SAT and ACT scores; students who are admitted and who do well show their ability and scholarship in a variety of channels. Scoring well on standardized tests alone doesn't mean as much as more varied proof of scholarship.
Admission standards shouldn't be watered down, by any means, but tying them exclusively to standardized testing alone isn't necessarily the best way to ensure that you get the brightest students, overall. But when all schools really want are students who test well, not necessarily those who are the best and brightest, that's what you get. And as long as funding is tied to making sure students can crank out the right regurgitated answers, that's the way it will be.
Here in CO, schools that do not have an attendance area are filled by lottery. There is some self-selection that goes on, e.g. kids who aren't looking for a "rigorous academic" school don't usually apply. Denver School of the Arts does require an audition.
If it takes 12-14 hours of daily studying to get into one of these schools, then I say God bless whoever wants to go there. It sounds like a horrible way to live your life, especailly for a teenager. Ivy League schools don't want a bunch of drones like that anyway, so what is the benefit of going there, and why are these hell holes called "elite" anyway?
If it takes 12-14 hours of daily studying to get into one of these schools, then I say God bless whoever wants to go there. It sounds like a horrible way to live your life, especailly for a teenager. Ivy League schools don't want a bunch of drones like that anyway, so what is the benefit of going there, and why are these hell holes called "elite" anyway?
They're called "elite" precisely because they have a good track record of feeding loads of students into Ivy League schools.
a) If there is such a high demand for seats in these honors/magnet schools, I'd like to see more of them created. Even the students that are just below "elite" could benefit from such an environment.
b) Perhaps the schools do need to move beyond a test-only admissions process. Maybe they need to adopt some of the things that colleges do when they consider which students to admit, such as including previous academic work (maybe limited to 7th and 8th grade) and also have the students complete an essay or short-answer application. Unfortunately my guess is the reason why they don't already do this is that it's much cheaper to feed a multiple-choice test into a Scantron and process scores than it is to go over a three or four part application for hundreds or thousands of students.
(1) We seem to forget exactly why standardized testing came to prominence. The original purpose was to identify talented students from lower-class backgrounds so that they could funnel into elite colleges. Now, we seem to think that the tests must be biased and discriminatory unless everybody gets the same score.
(2) IIRC, class rank is a better predictor than test scores. But taken together, they tell just about the whole story regarding success in further education.
(3) My own observation, for what it's worth, regarding today's America -- whites better start getting their (our) act together. Our present culture seems hell-bent on discouraging any serious approach to school or to life beyond school. See, for example, Charles Stanley's relatively new book "Coming Apart." Real life is not "Jersey Shore" or MTV for any ethnic group that wants to have a future.
If it takes 12-14 hours of daily studying to get into one of these schools, then I say God bless whoever wants to go there. It sounds like a horrible way to live your life, especailly for a teenager. Ivy League schools don't want a bunch of drones like that anyway, so what is the benefit of going there, and why are these hell holes called "elite" anyway?
12-14 hours/day is most certainly exaggerated. More often than not it's the difference between those who study diligently and those who don't.
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